


our lady peace (is always in repair)

by ircnman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Angst, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 22:16:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17568944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ircnman/pseuds/ircnman
Summary: Anthony Edward Stark is born as an explosion— destructive and wild eyed, hair soot dark, his round cheeks ruddy with exertion.Maria screams through his entire birth, loud and inconsolable while Howard sits at a desk half a city away, unknowing and uncaring.The world keeps spinning even as the stars sing.Anthony takes his first breath and the universehums.





	our lady peace (is always in repair)

**Author's Note:**

> if this seems familiar to anyone, that's because i posted this a few months ago before i decided to delete my account but obviously, im back again!!! 
> 
> because i have no backbone. 
> 
> i'll be reposting a good bit of my old stuff. a lot of it has been revamped and edited. hopefully that means better quality writing, but you never know i guess.

Anthony Edward Stark is born as an explosion— destructive and wild eyed, hair soot dark, his round cheeks ruddy with exertion.

Maria screams through his entire birth, loud and inconsolable while Howard sits at a desk half a city away, unknowing and uncaring.

The world keeps spinning even as the stars sing.

Anthony takes his first breath and the universe _hums._

 

+

 

He (Anthony, _Tony_ ) grows up under the fierce indoctrination of fists and shrapnel. Howard’s disappointment is as brutal as a .50 caliber bullet, puncturing Tony’s still developing ribcage once, twice, three times before he learns that he must apply pressure himself, small hands slippery with blood, and grit his teeth through the pain.

That is, if he wants to survive.

Tony’s seven when he learns to stop flinching away from people who want to hurt him.

He’s twelve when he learns how to finally fight back.

 

+

 

Aunt Peggy is a whirlwind, mouth red as menace and eyes sharp as tacks. Her hair is pristine, but her voice is sickle sweet and tea warm. She teaches Tony how to form a fist, how to throw a punch, how to plant his feet and snarl.

 _You’ve got the bark, darling,_ Peggy says after each lesson, Tony breathless beside her with the feeling of satisfaction thrumming gently beneath his skin. _You have to learn how to bite._

Then Jarvis is there with tea and milk, a small plate of cookies resting beside the cups, and Tony feels the word home settle in his bones like it's always belonged there.

 

 

+

 

  
At seventeen, Tony becomes a man. The transition from youth to adulthood is car crash smooth, all broken glass and busted steering wheels. Somewhere, on a winding forest road, pearls from his mother’s favorite necklace are blowing in the breeze, nothing but powder. Red, rusted and flaking, stains the asphalt.

It’s an end and it’s a beginning and Tony wishes he were nothing at all.

 

 

+

 

  
He’s too young to take over the company, so he completes his masters at MIT and then gets another. After that, he gets a doctorate and then two more and eventually, he loses count— loses the ability to discern whether the degrees are honorary or well deserved. Tony works and doesn’t think— he thinks and then he freezes, only for moments at a time. Rhodey catches him once, staring into the middle distance with eyes oil spill dark.

In one hand, Tony’s got a bottle of whiskey.

In the other, he holds a 9 millimeter Glisenti pistol.

Rhodey gently takes both, approaching Tony like he’s a spooked animal, filling the room with hushed words and empty assurances. He’s careful to avoid the broken glass at Tony’s feet— the ripped wood of the now broken mirror.

Rhodey asks _why_ and all Tony says is _target practice._

It feels like rock bottom, but then Tony digs deeper.

 

 

+

 

  
There are women and there are drugs and there are empty bottles that smell like his father’s breath, all wood barreled disappointment.

The longer it ages, the more bitter it gets.

None of it’s hard, but it exhausts Tony anyway.

There’s a ceremony and Rhodey’s there and so is Obadiah, but he opts to gamble instead, barely feeling the roll of the dice against his hands, the kisses pressed against his cheeks. He smiles wide and sultry, feels his eyes darken without meaning for them to, but it’s so routine that it happens without his permission.

A journalist approaches him and calls him the Merchant of Death, but two hours later he’s between her thighs.

Not for the first time, Tony wishes that he could pay for his sins with money.

At least then he’d be able to afford it.

 

 

+

 

  
Afghanistan is stifling— sauna hot without the humidity. The temperature dries his lips but he moistens them with bourbon and two-bit jokes that put the soldiers around him at ease.

A camera flashes in his face and it’s gunpowder and sand, the _pop-pop-pop_ of machine guns and the screams of men and women too young to die.  
He’s scrambling out of his armored car, ears ringing and vision blurry, his phone fumbling in his hand and he’s calling Obadiah because he’ll send someone, anyone, he’ll know what to do when—

There’s a buzz, a whistle. A bomb with his name on it.

Tony’s always been a sucker for irony.

He feels himself scream, loud and short, dust coating the back of his throat.

An explosion.

_Shrapnel._

It’s like coming home.

Darkness creeps up around his vision and Tony lets himself fall.

 

 

+

 

  
_Pain and red and pain pain pain, god it doesn’t end, and they’re sawing your chest open and you can feel it, hear it, every ache and every sting and you wonder if this is what it felt like for dad, if the numbness in your hands is death wiggling her way into your bones nice and soft and slow._

_A man is in front of you, spectacles dirty and skewed and his hands are red red red but his eyes are sad, so sad, and he mouths the words I’m sorry and then—_

 

 

+

 

  
Tony wakes up and he can’t breathe. He can feel a tube in the back of his throat and he pulls, the motion of the plastic inside of him making him gag, but once it’s out he’s gasping for air, damp and dirty.

He reaches for the bowl next to him because there’s something clear and liquid in the basin and it could be gasoline for all he cares, but he knocks it flat, spilling it onto the floor. There’s a tugging sensation in his chest, then— sharp and aching. He presses a hand to it, willing it to lessen, but his palm meets something hard and rigid, sparking at Tony’s fingers.

In a flash, he’s tearing at his bandages, pulling them away like wet paper. There’s a sound, animalistic and high, and it takes him a second too long to realize that it’s him that’s making it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” and Tony feels like he’s seventeen again, a police officer at the door, waiting for the sky to fall.

He looks to his left and there’s a car battery. 

It's all Tony can do to laugh, an image of him with a shovel digging past the Earth’s crust exploding vivid and surreal behind his eyes.  
He takes in the cavernous walls around him and tries to breathe.

Rock bottom indeed.

 

 

+

 

  
“Build the Jericho.”

“No,” you say.

Water in your lungs, fire in your chest.

Soon, it’s all you know.

 

 

+

 

  
“So you’re a man who has everything and nothing.”

Yinsen’s voice is soft as down, like he’s trying to take the sting out of the words, out of the revelation.

Tony tastes bile in the back of his throat anyway.

He lets himself think of black ice, whiskey and bourbon— his father’s apathy so thick it’s almost dripping. He sees strawberry hair and a sharp salute followed by a smile warm as candlelight.

He closes his eyes and watches DUM-E puttering around the workshop, hears JARVIS’s smooth timbre over the _dripdripdrip_ of condensation against jagged stone.

Yinsen stares and Tony sits and all he can do is ache for things he doesn’t deserve.

 

 

+

 

  
He builds a suit.

They form a plan.

Tony sticks to it but Yinsen doesn’t and Tony flies out of camp with blood staining the backs of his eyelids.

It’s too little, too late.

 

 

+

 

  
You shut down weapons manufacturing and it feels like divine retribution.

Obadiah’s hand is heavy on your shoulder and you feels like Atlas, then, with pressure on your collar bones, spine close to snapping.

Your sternum would ache too, but that was removed a few months ago.

It’s shrapnel, all of it.

Rhodey calls you insane and Pepper can’t meet your eyes until she's shoving her hand in your chest, gripping your insides with a delicate kind of strength.

At one point you flatline, but you laugh it off as if it’s nothing.

You can’t let a little thing like cardiac arrest stop you now.

 

 

+

 

  
Tony shakes hands with death again, but this time it’s Obadiah who sets up the meeting.

Unlike Pepper, he isn’t gentle— he just rips and tears and _pullspullspulls_ until the arc reactor is lighting up both of their faces, Tony’s paralyzed and pale and Obadiah’s flushed and gleeful.

Centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch, he can feel the jagged pieces of metal closing in on all his body’s softest places. Obadiah laughs and then he leaves and Tony just lies still, light as a feather and stiff as a board.

Time ticks by and then Yinsen’s voice is in his ear, rasping out his final words and Tony _moves._

 

 

+

 

  
Obadiah burns and it’s Tony’s fault even though Pepper says it isn’t.

She’s shaking like a leaf, her teeth chattering. It’s probably shock but Tony can’t comfort her, can’t offer her any of his warmth because he hasn’t got any left to give.

He stares at the broken remains of Obie’s— _Stane’s_ armor and feels the last bits of hope he’d been clinging to since Afghanistan fall away.

 

 

+

 

  
He nearly dies again.

He gives Pepper his company, lets Rhodey take one of his suits, and then a spider with eyes like glass and hair like fire shoves a needle into his neck and tells him to get a grip.

Howard says something on film that Tony presumes is supposed to be motivating, but the words fall flat.

They’re twenty years too late, anyways.

 

 

+

 

  
You meet Captain America.

You meets Captain fucking America, and it takes everything you can to not spit in the mans picture perfect face.

Civility is broken after only a second of peace.

Introductions start with a fumble, a tense _Mr. Stark_ and _Captain,_ and Steve’s already giving you that look, the one your father gave you so often.

A cruel mix between disgusted and resigned.

“I’ve seen the footage,” Steve says, and a smarter man probably would’ve taken a step back, would’ve yielded to the war hero that brought Hydra to its knees.

But, well.

You may be a genius but that doesn't mean you’re wise.

So you takes a step forward instead.

You snarl and spit and your bite is as good as your bark this time, all because of Aunt Peggy.

The memory of her aches in a way it hasn’t in ages, and you’re sure that it has something to do with the star spangled man seething in front of you.

_She'd be so disappointed._

You call Rogers a number of different names, from unoriginal to dispensable to _useless._

Then there’s an explosion and Rogers is wrapping his body around yours, cushioning the blow, and for the first time, you're not the one that’s left tasting ash.

 

You puts on the suit.

The Captain told you to, after all.

 

 

+

 

  
The fight is brutal and beautiful in equal measure. Despite the friction between him and Rogers— _Steve,_ — their fighting styles fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. Their teamwork is fluid, seamless in a way Tony has never experienced.

Aliens are going down left and right and it’s awkward and it’s so not the time, but Tony feels laughter of all things bubbling up in his chest. The elation of feeling useful, the sudden sense of _belongingbelongingyoubelong_ fuels him to fight faster, harder.

 _Stark, you hear me?_ and the moment ends.

_You have a missile headed straight for the city._

Tony doesn’t even hesitate.

Jarvis is there with him, keeping up a steady countdown in his ear as he approaches the nuke. When he finally makes contact, gets a grip on its casing, the sound of metal against metal makes his teeth grind.

Now isn’t the time for fear.

“Stark…you know that’s a one way trip.” Rogers voice sounds so resigned, so _young,_ and it’s only then that Tony remembers that Captain America went into the ice at twenty-six and came out the same age.  
He doesn’t reply, can’t, his breath coming in sharp, short bursts and he’s going upup _up_ and—

 

 

+

 

  
_Anthony Edward Stark was born as an explosion— destructive and wild eyed, hair soot dark, round cheeks ruddy with exertion._

_(A nuclear warhead makes contact with an alien spaceship. Orange and red blooms outwards, eating up the darkness of space.  
There’s no air, there’s no sound, there’s only fire and heat, so familiar it aches.)_

_It’s only fitting that he dies as one. ___

__

__

__+_ _

__

__Tony opens his eyes to Captain America— _Steve_ — smiling down at him, eyes bright and clear as crystal in the daylight._ _

__The city is in shambles. In the distance, there’s police sirens wailing, the sound of a baby crying, rubble settling against asphalt._ _

__“What just happened?” Tony says, and he's almost afraid of the answer._ _

__“We won.”_ _

__Tony closes his eyes and grins._ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__Steve finds him at the Tower, after everything._ _

__Loki and Thor are off-world, the Wonder Twins are off gallivanting with SHIELD once again, and Bruce is living on floor 32, holed up in his lab working on a new project._ _

__There’s peace and there’s quiet and Tony hasn’t slept in three days._ _

__Somehow, that seems unimportant in the grand scheme of things._ _

__“Jarvis, you gotta tell me, buddy. Am I hallucinating or is the good Captain actually standing outside my workshop right now?” He asks, only half serious, because he usually doesn’t start hallucinating until day five. He has a feeling that if Jarvis had them, he’d be rolling his eyes right now._ _

__“Captain Rogers is indeed outside of your workspace, Sir. Shall I grant him access?” And Jarvis’s voice is on just the right side of encouraging, so he must be desperate to give Tony some kind of human interaction._ _

__Tony waves his hand in assent, rubbing his eyes and turning back to his project so he doesn’t have to watch Steve’s face as he enters._ _

__He must get reabsorbed in the holograms in front of him, because by the time he finally registers that Steve is clearing his throat to get his attention, there’s an ache in his neck and a tension to his frame that wasn’t there before._ _

__“Mr. Stark,” Steve says once Tony finally whirls towards him. He’s holding out a hand, an olive branch, and Tony is too exhausted to feel petty anymore._ _

__“Call me Tony, Cap,” he replies, keeping his voice light and easy as he takes the offered hand in his. Steve’s grip is firm but not domineering, his palms smooth and uncalloused._ _

___Must be the serum,_ Tony thinks._ _

__Steve’s mouth twitches._ _

__“I’ll call you Tony if you call me Steve,” and he’s smiling now, timid and unsure, but it’s real and Tony can’t help but smile back._ _

__It feels like a beginning._ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__  
The team moves in. All of them._ _

__Pepper is beside herself, but she’s smiling even while she chews Tony out for not telling her._ _

__When he tells Rhodey, the man just laughs, bright and sharp, reaching out to cradle the back of Tony’s head._ _

__Tony yields like he always has, folding himself into Rhodey’s space to clutch at the fabric of his dress blues._ _

__“This’ll be good for you,” Rhodey murmurs, the vibration of his voice rattling through Tony’s chest as he runs his fingers through the hair at the nape of Tony’s neck. It only makes him hold on tighter._ _

__“I swear Tones, if they hurt you? They won’t even see me coming.”_ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__  
Steve starts hanging out in the workshop, setting up his own little space on the couch where DUM-E and Butterfingers usually charge._ _

__Sometimes they chat while Tony is working, sometimes they sit in companionable silence._ _

__Sometimes Steve stares while Tony pretends not to notice._ _

__It’s a dance and Tony doesn’t know the steps._ _

__He lets Steve lead._ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__  
There’s a mission that goes wrong and it’s Tony that’s the collateral._ _

__It was supposed to be a simple callout— some amateur villain that wanted to try his hand at world (or rather, New York) domination. There were a series of explosives rigged around significant parts of the city, one in each of the boroughs. Tony had been able to pinpoint the exact locations of each of the bombs, sending Natasha and Clint to Queens, Thor to Staten Island, Bruce and a few SHIELD agents to the Bronx, and Steve to Brooklyn._ _

__For obvious reasons._ _

__Everything was fine, all of the bombs disabled and the wannabe terrorist identified and put in cuffs._ _

__But then, Tony gets to work on Manhattan and everything goes to shit._ _

__The rig is different, more advanced, and more importantly, it’s _in Stark Tower.__ _

__There must’ve been a security breach somehow, somewhere, but Tony can’t focus on that right now, can’t do anything but watch as the digital numbers on the timer blink down, down, down._ _

__“Cap, the connection is piggybacking on Starkware servers. I can’t disengage it, he made— fuck, he made a mess in here. It's not even good programming, it's just messy, Christ, there’s no way I can untangle this shit. He integrated the coded lock with—"_ _

__“Tony,” Steve cuts in, and his voice is tinny over the comms._ _

__Tinny and _panicked_ in a way Tony’s never heard before._ _

__“Tony, if you can’t shut it down, get out of there. You hear me? Get. Out.”_ _

__“Steve,” Tony starts, but his hands are already moving, pulling at wires and holding the actual explosive between his palms. He knows what he has to do, knows that the Tower is in the middle of evacuating but there’s no way they’ll get everyone cleared in time._ _

__“Steve,” He starts again, but his mind remains blank. He makes his way to the window, kicking the repulsers into gear, and then he’s in the air going upup _up_ all over again._ _

__There’s a choked noise on the comms— an indistinct sound of distress and grief and _denial denial denial.__ _

__A scream, a pop, and then Natasha’s voice, growling from a distance, “Shut it down. Tell us how to shut it down, you—”_ _

__“Tony,” and it’s Steve again, his voice nothing but a whisper. It seems he's out of words, too._ _

__From this high, Tony can see most of New York stretching out in front of him. Somewhere below, Steve is safe, standing in Brooklyn like it’s 1938 all over again.  
Pausing, suspended in the sky, Tony throws the bomb as far as possible and then he turns, rocketing back in the direction of _home.__ _

__The numbers on his HUD flicker out a final warning, counting down._ _

___5\. 4. 3. 2._  
__

____  
In his ear, Steve says “Tony, I—” and then there’s heat on his back, black in his vision, fire in his veins.  


__Hair soot dark._ _

__Ruddy cheeks._ _

__Tony closes his eyes and falls._ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__  
__The sound of metal being torn to shreds— the jaws of life, pulling him from his coffin._ ___

____

___“Where the fuck are the—"_ _ _

___“—stabilize his neck, we don’t know if—"_ _ _

___“He’s losing too much—"_ _ _

___“Tony. You can’t leave yet. Tony."_ _ _

___The voice is blue blue blue but Tony feels red red red and there’s a hand on his cheek, a hand in his hair, salt water dripdripdripping into his mouth like rain—_ _ _

___“Tony.”_ _ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__  
They keep him in the hospital for nearly a month. They’d almost caught him, had almost gotten to him in time, but they couldn’t make it._ _

__Instead, he'd landed on top of the Woolworth Building._ _

__Only to go through 42 floors._ _

__He’s alive, though._ _

__Somehow._ _

__Steve stays with him the whole time._ _

__Tony doesn’t know what that means, but for once, he doesn’t care._ _

__

__+_ _

__

__“You’re an idiot,” Steve says the night before he’s supposed to be released. His jaw is squared, like he’s looking for a fight, but his eyes are bright and glassy like he’s holding onto his composure with nothing but bloody nails and pure will._ _

__“I think we established that a long time ago,” is the only response Tony can come up with. It sounds tired, even to his ears._ _

__Steve closes his eyes. Something in him loosens as the corners of his mouth flicker upwards, candle quick, the almost-smile disappearing just as fast as it manifested._ _

__“You’re an idiot,” He says again, and then he’s moving, leaning over the hospital bed and cradling the back of Tony’s skull like he’s something precious, something breakable._ _

__Their mouths meet and it doesn’t matter that Tony hasn’t showered in three days, that Steve hasn’t shaved in five-- that their teeth are clacking and biting into each other, animalistic and desperate._ _

__Explosions burst behind Tony’s eyelids anyway._ _

__

__

__+_ _

__

__  
They’re lying together in bed, their legs tangled in the sheets, and the room is quiet in the stillness of early morning._ _

__Outside, the sun is on the brink of rising, drenching the room in dim white light and purple shadows._ _

__Steve’s hand is cradling Tony’s jaw, his thumb sweeping a soothing pattern over the bone like he’s rubbing away some kind of phantom ache._ _

__They breathe together, curling inwards, invading each other’s space without even noticing._ _

__Tony lets himself pause, lets his eyes sweep over Steve’s cheeks, his blonde eyelashes, the few and far between wrinkles that have started to carve themselves into his forehead. He lets himself wonder if this is what the aftermath feels like. Lets himself wonder if this is the rubble settling, if are the fires, finally burning out._ _

__If this is peace._ _

__Steve smiles, soft and wide and aching, and reaches for Tony to pull him closer._ _

__Tony smiles back, reaching reaching _reaching.__ _

__He has his answer._ _

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @mittonystark if you like because i remade that as well lol


End file.
